A journey down the rabbit hole of Rubik's-style puzzles

I received an email responding to my last post (the one in which I declared this a blog for the mediocre!). I explained at the end of that post that, yes, clichéd as it is, the best advice for learning complicated algorithms is practice, practice, practice. The email asked how I practice. The short story is algorithm-by-algorithm, perm-by-perm. I just learned the Ra PLL, for example: (R U2 R) D (R’ U R) D’ (R’ U’) (R’ U R U R’). It was among the harder perms I’ve learned, and I’m not fast at it — between 3 and 4.5 seconds. So, I just drill over and over and over. Do it, reset, do it again. Here’s a quick video showing it:

Yes, that’s a just-purchased off-brand Stackmat timer connected to CCT on my work PC. “Shanty” form Bright Light Social Hour’s brilliant self-titled album is barely audible in the background.